Looking for Native Orchids on Whidbey Island
 

Whidbey Island is just off the coast and can be reached by a bridge from the north. It is one of our favorite places for native orchids and for sight-seeing. Hope you see a little of its beauty through our eyes (and cameras).

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7226/7...1ed44e9f_m.jpg

Many more pictures here:
Serendipity and Orchids: Whidbey Island

What cool shot!

Kim

Fabulous photos as always. Reading the comments on your blog I see that it seems someone uprooted the Candy Sticks :( Gah - don't you wish you could just shake sense into some people???

Ah! Banana Slugs! hehe I love the yellow ones, tho they're a bit off-putting at first lol. Don't know if you know, but UC Santa Cruz mascot is the Banana Slug! :D

Thanks again for sharing!

Thanks Kim and Sonya for checking the link and commenting. Sonya, I didn't know about the mascot but love it, and as to the Candysticks, it is a shame, but people can be really thoughtless. I don't understand why they would just destroy them but so it is.

Yeah I don't understand why people do those kinds of things :((

Leave it to UC Santa Cruz to have a slug as a mascot! hehe

I think that is really funny - someone had a great sense of humor.

Great shots as always, Ron! I went across Deception Pass once with my family while the bear grass was in bloom. One of the denser areas I've seen for it, just beautiful.

Your unidentified flower looks a bit like Trientalis borealis, starflower, though it's harder to tell from that angle and it would be an exceptionally dark pink form.

You nailed the ID on the unidentified wildflower, Evan. Thanks! Hope you get back to Deception Pass sometime. Thanks for looking and commenting, too.

You're welcome, Ron. Trientalis is one of my favorite native flowers. I've never seen one that dark though. Cool find! Maybe the northern populations are darker than the ones in southwest WA.

I hope to get back to Deception Pass sometime, too. For the foreseeable future, though, I'm on the East Coast. Massachusetts at the moment, and in September I move to Pennsylvania. Next week I'm going to a place called Eshqua Bog in Vermont. Some people that just got back this weekend from a trip there counted over 500 Cypripedium reginae just along the trail! They were just starting, so I'm hoping they'll still be going when I make it up there.

I am exceedingly jealous

Have to say, though, that we went to Dog Mountain in the gorge last week and saw thousands of Ghost Orchids. It was an incredible hike.